Eyes of Crow

by Jeri Smith-Ready

Rhia looked up and down the tunnel. “I don’t understand this. How will I understand what comes next?”

  She felt Crow smile.

  The Other Side.

  It came to her as sounds she could see, sights she could smell, tastes she could touch. All senses took each other’s places, then merged into one.

  Honey-flavored light bathed her from the inside out and the outside in, until there was no longer any difference between out and in.

  She almost laughed when she thought of the name of the place: the Other Side. What was it the Other Side of? Hadn’t she always been here? All time shrank into one moment, a Forever Now. She never wanted to leave, and took comfort in the certainty that Never would never come.

  The spirits of the dead surrounded her, but dead was too…dead a word to describe them. Their lives had always been and always would be, here, nestled in the realm of Crow.

  “Why are you black?” she asked him. “You should be every color, like Raven, to match your home.”

  “Black is only what you see in your world. Look at me now.”

  She turned to him. He was still black. Perhaps it was a joke. But as she gazed longer into the depths of his darkness, she did see, hear, taste, smell, feel every color. They were not arrayed in a twisting, dancing rainbow—the way Raven had appeared to her before the Bestowing—but rather they each lay behind and pulsed through the others. All colors were one in black, just as all spirits were one in this place.

  The oneness was interrupted suddenly, by a figure in the corner of her vision. A little girl.

  Rhia.

  She whispered her own name as though it belonged to someone else.

  “Why am I here already?” she asked Crow.

  “You left part of yourself behind when you almost died before.”

  She watched the girl run and cartwheel among invisible hills, as confident as a colt. “Is that why I’ve been weak ever since?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “May I take her back?”

  “Ask her.”

  She could not move. Instead she willed the child to approach her, which she did, unafraid. Her long red hair glinted in sunlight too earthly for this place. The Rhia-that-was stared at the Rhia-that-is with somber green eyes.

  “I’ve been waiting,” the child said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The younger Rhia smiled. A front tooth was missing. “I like it here.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Can you stay?”

  Rhia cast a secretive glance at Crow. Maybe if they asked very politely…

  He cocked His head as if hearing a far-off call. “It’s time to go. They need you.”

  “Who?” She didn’t know anyone. Or rather, she knew everyone and everything, but no one and nothing in particular.

  “Your people.”

  “I’m needed here.”

  “Not yet.” Crow turned his back. “Please follow me.”

  “No! I want to stay.” The child’s presence goaded Rhia’s own petulance. “I need to stay.”

  “You’ll be back someday to stay forever. Until then—”

  “Please.” If she had knees, she would kneel. If she had hands, she would clutch Crow’s feathers in supplication. “There must be lost souls who need shepherding, souls who can’t find their way to the Other Side. I can help them. I can help you. Here.”

  Crow turned to her slowly, revealing a look as desperate as she felt.

  “I need you to return.”

  Rhia met His gaze and felt her will relent. “Why?”

  His eyes darkened from midnight blue to a piercing black. “Another time of conflict approaches, a time when death will fall from the sky like hail.”

  Rhia absorbed His words with a calm that surprised her. What Crow spoke of was distant and impossible, like the spooky stories the elders would tell children around the campfire at Harvest Festivals, tales of rage and chaos in the times before the so-called Reawakening. In this place, she could imagine no trouble touching her or anyone she knew.

  She looked at the little girl’s outstretched hand and felt her flow into her own being.

  She had to learn to trust Crow. And herself.

  “Bring me back.”

  Crow bowed. “Until next time.” With a great thumping of wings, He took off, leaving her behind.

  A heavy weight threw her into darkness. Cold air swiped her face. She struggled for breath, lungs pierced with pain, and realized that the heavy weight was her own body.

  A voice called her name from far away.

  Marek.

  She tried to open her eyes, twitch her fingers, any signal to show she was there.

  Help me.

  Coranna’s chants thrummed the air, as they had before Rhia had died. All of this was her death in reverse—the cold, the chants, Marek calling her name.

  Except for the pain. Death hadn’t hurt like this.

  Panic seized her body as she fought for the first breath. Her heart wanted to beat, was promising to pump life again, but demanded air as ransom. Her lungs seemed to be waiting for her heart to start first. Neither wanted to grant life, for they were each too cold to try.

  Come back, she cried to Crow. I’m trapped in a body that doesn’t work. It’s too late to live. Let me die.

  No response.

  Please. It hurts.

  “Rhia.” Coranna spoke at her ear. “Welcome back.”

  No!

  “You’re going to live,” she said. “Your body will wake up soon.”

  “How soon?” Marek asked.

  “Be patient.” Elora’s voice came from farther away. “If she comes back too fast…”

  “Shh.” Coranna spoke with a level voice. “She can hear your doubts, which are quite unnecessary. Right now we need to give her spirit time to remember what it’s like to live.”

  I don’t want to live. I want to go home.

  “What if she doesn’t want to live?” he said. “What if she’s suffering? If Rhia can hear us, then she’s aware, which means she knows she can’t breathe. Doesn’t that hurt?”

  Yes.

  “No,” Coranna said.

  What?

  Coranna must know what this is like, Rhia thought. Maybe she’s lying to keep Marek calm. But what about me? Am I not supposed to suffer? Is something wrong?

  “Let me talk to her,” Marek said.

  There was a sigh, then a shuffling of feet and cloth. Marek’s voice came closer.

  “Rhia, you may not know it, but I’m holding your hand. Please come back so you can feel it again.” He steadied his voice. “All I want is to lie next to you and bring you to life. But I can’t yet. Elora says we can’t warm you too fast or you’ll die again, maybe for good this time. Coranna’s never brought anyone back twice.

  “Just live. The rest will follow, but you have to want it.” He leaned closer. “I won’t let you not want it.”

  Rhia’s mind cried out to him, uncertain whether it was to call him closer or push him away. It was like shouting through a mouthful of dust.

  He spoke to Coranna. “What’s it like, the place where she was?”

  After a long pause, she replied, “The details change for each person, but most experience it as a place of light and acceptance.”

  “She must have loved it. She hates the dark.” He spoke to Rhia again. “Remember what I taught you that night, about the energy that flows between you and me and everything? It’s here in this world, too.”

  She felt a pressure against her chest, and didn’t know whether it came from inside or outside her skin. Had her heart beat, or had Marek touched her?

  Regardless, it meant she would stay.

  Breaths came at last, shallow and slow, and each one brought immeasurable pain, as if the air were filled with tiny daggers. Rhia wanted to cry but had no tears, to scream but had no voice.

  She was wrapped tight inside something thick and soft that protected her body from the ground, which no longer stole her heat. The wind did not touch her h
ere, so they must have moved her inside the cave.

  She hated breathing, but forced herself to continue. The others waited in silence around her. She wished they would chatter about anything, to distract her from the pain and the laborious struggle for life.

  Perhaps they slept. She couldn’t wait to sleep. She couldn’t wait to move, to eat, to drink. To live.

  So she did want to live, after all. Though it wasn’t as good as death—nothing ever would be, she knew now—life would surpass this paralysis that evoked the weakness that had depleted her many years before. Her strength had never returned in full, and for that she was bitter even to this moment. If only she were stronger, she would have recovered by now. Instead she was causing these people to sit in a chilly cave overnight waiting for her to get around to living.

  Serves them right, she thought.

  A giggle bottled up inside her and finally escaped in a tiny burst of noise. Inside Rhia’s head it sounded like a hiccup, which made her want to laugh more. A panicky delirium took hold.

  Someone drew near and pressed a fingertip to the side of Rhia’s neck, calming her. She felt her own pulse greet the person’s touch.

  “It’s stronger now,” Elora said. “Steadier.”

  “So she lives,” Marek whispered. “If she hadn’t—”

  “She does,” Coranna said. “She will.”

  Marek was silent for several moments. “Forgive my lack of faith.” His voice held true contrition. “I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

  “You have every right to doubt me,” Coranna said softly.

  Elora held the back of her hand to Rhia’s forehead. “She’s still cold. It will be a long night.” She tugged the blanket tighter. “Perhaps you two should sleep.”

  “No,” Marek and Coranna said together.

  Something inside Rhia thawed and cracked like a river in springtime. The worst pain yet, but it was a relief. If she hurt, she lived.

  “Then one of you heat some rocks on that fire,” Elora said. “Soon it will be time to add warmth to her body.”

  “I’ll do it.” Marek scooted out of the cave. Rhia imagined him ducking to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling. By now he would be invisible, so she did not try to open her eyes.

  Scraps of memory flitted through Rhia’s mind, the hours before Crow had come to take her away. She remembered pacing, fuming and—

  What had she said to them? In desperation she had raged, begged for her life, gone any way but gracefully to her death. The shame flowed through her like the blood that slowly returned to her limbs.

  She had been a coward, of course.

  A horrible memory, clear as rain now, replayed her last words to Marek, about Coranna: You wouldn’t have to see her every day and remember what she took from you. She remembered the pain that crossed his face and made him turn his eyes away from both of them.

  And Coranna—surely those words had pierced her as well. Rhia curled up inside herself and dreaded her return to life.

  But life was coming. When Elora pulled Rhia’s arm out of the bundle and checked her wrist for a pulse, she felt the healer’s soft hands, though at a distance, as if her own skin were several inches thick.

  “Bring the stones,” Elora said. “The blood is starting to flow to her limbs. If this happens too fast, the cold, stagnant blood from her arms and legs will flood to the rest of the body and drop her temperature again.”

  Rhia felt alarm. Could she die again? She had so many questions, but her throat was too cold to speak.

  And getting colder. Her heart began to skip beats—thumping fast, then not at all, then fast again. Her breath rattled.

  “Hurry!” Elora said. Rhia was turned on her back, her other arm released from the bundle. Warm, hard objects were placed under her armpits and at the base of her neck.

  “What’s happening?” Marek sat close to Rhia’s head. She wanted to reach for him, for the warmth he had given her those cold nights in the forest.

  “She’s dropping,” Elora said in a clipped voice. “I’ll need to do a spell.”

  “Dropping? What’s that?”

  “Marek, come here.” Coranna snapped her fingers. “Give her room. Elora, do you need anything?”

  “Only silence.”

  No, not silence, Rhia thought. She needed to hear voices, needed to grasp something from this world.

  Elora laid her hands on either side of Rhia’s pelvis, paused for a moment, and began to chant.

  The roiling, high-pitched song went straight to Rhia’s blood, infusing it with a warmth that traveled up one side of her torso and down the other. Unlike Coranna’s low, soothing intonation that called the spirit out of the body, this chant shocked and invigorated. Elora sang of the summer sun, and the yellow-white orb itself seemed to journey through Rhia’s body, stopping at the places where her legs joined her hips.

  The healer repeated the action at Rhia’s shoulders, then at the base of her throat, until her chest and abdomen felt almost normal. Her heartbeat was steady now, without skips and jumps, and her breath came with a reassuring regularity. Warmth leaked slowly into her arms, legs and head, this time without the sensation of cold flowing back to her body.

  She opened her eyes.

  Marek whispered her name from a few feet away.

  “Wait,” Elora said. She appeared in Rhia’s view, and even in the low glow of the fire, her eyes shone with concern. “Can you speak?”

  Rhia blinked and opened her parched mouth. Her tongue felt like a dead leaf.

  “Here, some water.” Elora held a wet cloth to Rhia’s lips and dabbed the inside of her mouth.

  “Thank you,” Rhia whispered. Her voice sounded hollow. “I almost died, didn’t I? Just now?”

  Elora raised an eyebrow. “Not on my watch, little woman.” She twisted behind her to pick up a flask. “Can you swallow some honey water?”

  Rhia tried to nod, but the most she could manage was a twitch. “Yes.”

  Elora removed the warm rocks from her neck and her right armpit. “Marek, help me turn her on her side for a moment.”

  Unseen hands took hold of her left shoulder and hip and eased them forward. Her hand hit the ground with a thud as the dead weight of her arm dropped. Elora tilted the flask and let a few drops spill into Rhia’s mouth. She swallowed one of the drops, as the rest dribbled out the side of her mouth. After she had consumed two or three swallows of the warm, sweet liquid, they laid her on her back again.

  As she spoke, Elora drew the blanket tighter around Rhia and tucked it under her chin. “Sleep now. I’ll wake you for more honey water. Your body needs fuel for strength. By morning you’ll have your limbs back.” She patted Rhia’s hand. “Won’t that be nice?”

  Rhia managed to smile, although to an outsider it may have looked more like a grimace.

  Marek cleared his throat. “Elora, may I…”

  “It’s safe now.” The healer’s face showed doubt. “But ask her first.”

  A hand brushed a lock of hair from Rhia’s face. “Rhia,” Marek said, “would it be all right if I lay next to you? To give you more warmth.”

  She wanted that more than anything, but feared to admit it. He would have left behind everything he knew to save her life, if she had only asked. And in return for his devotion, she had assailed him with more fury than she knew she possessed. How could he forgive her so easily?

  She turned her head to look at Coranna. The older woman’s hair glistened in the firelight as she leaned forward to speak.

  “When someone’s freezing to death,” she said, “they become irrational. They say things they don’t mean. I warned Marek ahead of time, so let him help you. Don’t be silly.”

  Rhia looked straight up where she thought Marek’s face would be. “Do it.”

  He nestled beside her and tugged another blanket over their bodies. He pulled her tight against him and drew his leg across hers, surrounding her like fog around a mountain. His warmth seeped into her, carrying blood and life to her most rem
ote and desolate regions.

  25

  The Kalindon throng that mobbed Rhia upon her return two days later could not be the same subdued folks she had left behind.

  They were wild.

  When they reached her, the shouting crowd lifted her off her pony onto their shoulders. She wobbled with a strange sense of weightlessness and looked back at Marek.

  “Enjoy!” he said with a wave of the hand.

  Singing and laughing, they carried her to a clearing in the woods where a bonfire burned, surrounded by smaller fires which cooked a variety of meats. Her mouth watered at the scents. After two days of honey water and dried fruit, she’d happily eat a porcupine, quills and all, with a side of roasted pine bark. Or maybe just a side of more porcupine.

  She noticed that none of the food had been touched. A long table sat off to the right of the fire, filled with dishes of fruits and nuts and berries. Her stomach would have growled if it weren’t lurching with the rest of her.

  Alanka scurried up holding a bundle of cloth. “Wait, wait, wait, everyone. You can’t expect the guest of honor to preside looking like that.” She gestured to Rhia’s appearance. The villagers groaned with impatience as they set her down. “You’ve waited three days to eat,” Alanka said to them, “you can wait a few more minutes. Now stay here.”

  She yanked Rhia through the crowd to a dense growth of shrubs. When they were hidden from sight, she tugged at the ties on Rhia’s trousers. “Take those off.”

  “What did you mean, they’ve waited three days to eat?”

  “We’ve been fasting since you left.” At Rhia’s surprised gaze, she said, “In solidarity, of course. Plus, it helped us save up extra food. And appetite.”

  “You all knew.” Rhia slowly unfastened her trousers. “You all knew I was going to die.”

  Alanka cringed. “I’m so sorry. Coranna told us when Marek left to meet you after your Bestowing. I wanted to tell you, but she said it would only make it worse. Will you forgive me?”

  Rhia couldn’t bear for the moment to turn somber. “That depends on what you’re planning to dress me in.”

  With a flourish and a grin, Alanka held forth a long gown of the darkest, most vibrant violet Rhia had ever seen outside of wildflowers. The velvet material sifted through her fingers like the lushest spring grass. A moan of admiration escaped her lips.